


Puzzles

by asexualshepard



Series: The Adventures of Brynja Cousland, Warden of Ferelden [5]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Comfort, Cuddling & Snuggling, Cute, Developing Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Gift Giving, Reminiscing, Romantic Fluff, kind of???, tbh this is my favorite headcanon for bryn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-20
Updated: 2015-11-19
Packaged: 2018-05-02 11:49:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5247191
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asexualshepard/pseuds/asexualshepard
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bryn gives Alistair a gift that's rather different from the normal statuettes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Puzzles

“I got you something.”

Bryn was nervous, and it showed in her voice. Syllables quaked with small breaths behind them, heavy thumps echoed through her chest as her heart beat strongly. It didn’t make any sense, though. She’d given him gifts before—several, in fact—but she’d never felt like this. And when his eyes rose from the plates of his armor and landed on her, the cloth in his hand forgotten, the sensation got worse.

Alistair flashed her a teasing grin. “Didn’t you give me one of those little statuettes just the other day?” he asked, holding up a few fingers to show her the general size of the small idols she gave him whenever she found one.

A moment.

“Oh…” Bryn mumbled. A blush began to spread across her cheeks. “I did, didn’t I?”

He grinned and nodded, his eyes flashing with mirth against the light of the fire. Her feet shuffled against the dirt for a moment before she pulled her lips between her teeth and plopped down beside him, fingers worrying each other in her lap. Her anxiousness seemed to amuse him. He set his armor aside and scooted closer to her, his knee brushing against her own.

The way his shoulders hunched and his mouth quirked to one side made him look smaller—almost like a child. It helped. The longer she looked at him, the more faded her nerves became, and soon she was leaning towards him, bringing her face closer to his.

“I should be more careful,” she muttered, her voice taking on an airy tone it only developed when she was teasing him. “Wouldn’t want to spoil you.”

His lips twitched into a false pout as his fingers wiggled between her own, pressing their palms together. “You can spoil me a little.”

“No, no, I think I’ll hold onto your gift for a few more days.”

He leaned closer yet and set his chin on her shoulder, looking up at her through his lashes with wide eyes.

“Alistair, I have a mabari,” she smiled, her nose brushing his accidentally as she spoke. “Puppy-dog eyes don’t work on my anymore.”

He groaned and pressed his face to her neck, his fingers tightening around hers. His breath tickled against her pulse. It hadn’t been long since she’d explained what giving him the Cousland family sword meant, and therefore their relationship was still rather new; their touches were still tentative, if frequent. Every kiss still left butterflies to swarm in her stomach, and she hoped they would continue to do so for a very, very long time.

“Oh, alright,” she relented with an over-exaggerated sigh. She’d never intended to actually keep the gift from him, but Maker, pretending had been worth it. She almost wished that she’d waited a few moments longer when he leaned away from her. Then she saw the look in his eyes, and that desire vanished almost completely.

Alistair almost seemed to bounce as she pulled her hand from his and reached to her opposite side. There, a small pouch was tied around her belt. She undid the knot keeping it in place and tugged at the drawstrings as she turned her gaze back to him, her smile widening as she caught the excited expression in his eyes. Still, her nerves returned, but the strength of them was nowhere near where they had been earlier.

She cleared her throat. “Hold out your hands.”

He cupped his fingers and palms and waited. Bryn’s lip found its way between her teeth as she raised the pouch and upturned it over his hands, the objects inside tumbling into this waiting grasp.

Alistair looked down at them, his brow furrowing, and her anxiety reared its head with full force. His childish grin had been replaced—lips pressing into a tight line as he squinted at the small, metal rods that sat in his palms. He shifted all of the items to one hand and moved them around with the forefinger of his other, the shapes making small clinking noises as they moved.

“What are they?” he asked, taking one of the small, metal rods between his thumb and forefinger and lifting it up to his eyes. Another rod was attached to it, curled around its brother.

Bryn shifted against the dirt. “They’re, um, puzzles,” she muttered, watching his face carefully.

He hummed and gently shook the rods, his mouth quirking to one side as he examined them. Bryn’s heart was thumping angrily against her ribs. It wasn’t her usual gift—normally she gave him trinkets that meant nothing, small statues he seemed to enjoy or the odd piece of jewelry she found on their travels. The puzzles had been an impulse, sitting on a high shelf in the smallest store of a tiny town.

Oriana and Fergus had bought hundreds of them, once upon a time. When Oren had started taking up lessons with Aldous, he’d quickly taken a liking to learning—constantly curious—and the puzzles had served as a way to sate him when neither of his parents had the time. There had been many times where he’d shared them with her. Of course, she was never very good at them, and he often had to demonstrate how each puzzle was solved.

“How do they work?”

Alistair’s voice—soft and concentrated—pulled her from her reverie. He was still staring at the rods between his fingers with a look of focused curiosity.

Suddenly, she knew exactly why she’d thought the puzzles would be a good gift.

“Here,” she mumbled, her fingers brushing his as she took the pair of twined rods from him. “You just try to get the two rods apart.”

Her fingers fumbled familiarly, tugging and twisting the two bent shapes around each other. She remembered this particular pattern. The rods were bent in the same way as one of Oren’s old sets, exactly like the first one he’d showed her how to solve. Therefore, when she managed to pull the two pieces apart, a melancholy smile wormed its way onto her lips, and she smoothed her thumbs over the metal for a few moments, reminiscing.

With a deep breath, she returned her gaze to Alistair. His brow no longer sat low over his eyes, nor were his lips tight. He watched her softly, his hands in his lap, and, as he reached out to take the rods from her, Bryn knew that he’d figured there was something more significant to this gift.

“My nephew used to do them,” she explained quietly. “You… remind me of him, at times.”

A small, warm smile graced Alistair’s lips, and he set the puzzles on the dirt in front of him, his fingers pulling one attached set from the pile and setting to work on it. He didn’t ask her to elaborate further, and she’d never been more thankful. For a moment, she simply watched. She admired the way he deftly twisted the rods in his grasp, noted how quickly he finished one puzzle and began another.

And then her arm was wrapping around his back, her hand falling against his waist as she settled closer to him. With a smile, he leaned into her. His temple found her cheekbone, and she was tempted to turn her head and press a kiss to his hairline—but she was comfortable, and wanted to watch him solve his puzzles.

So she did.

 

**Author's Note:**

> This is my favorite headcanon for these two, and there's more to it that I'm definitely going to write at a later date. 
> 
> Thanks for taking the time to read! :)


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